Michael Weston King

Born in 1961 in Southport, Merseyside, England, King gained his widest recognition through membership in the Good Sons, the leading alt country act in the UK, whose well-received albums appeared throughout the mid- and late 1990s; yet his musical activity actually stretches back to the late 1970s. After growing up in Southport, he quit school at sixteen and moved to nearby Liverpool, where he performed on guitar alongside several under-performing indie groups. In the mid-1980s he stepped away from that circuit to become a member of UK country rock singer Gary Hall’s backing band the Stormkeepers, remaining with them for four years until their 1991 dissolution. King then spent a couple of years singing in local folk clubs before assembling the Good Sons during the mid-1990s; the group finished three fine albums and entered hiatus in 1999 following a run of mishaps that nearly ended their career. He used the break to cut his first solo record, the brooding, folk-tinged God Shaped Hole, which featured the Townes Van Zandt tribute “Lay Me Down.”

After touring Europe alone for a time, King reassembled the Good Sons to make their fourth album, Happiness. Its modest commercial showing prompted a definitive split, freeing him to focus entirely on solo work. A low-key live set appeared in 2002, followed by A Decent Man, which he recorded with producer Jackie Leven. The 2005 album Absent Friends mixed stirring live performances with assorted rarities.